LETTERS: Star readers have their say

G Ellison’s letter in The Star (October 11) referred to a letter I once wrote saying that it could be hard work in the public sector and linked it with comments he claims I made in a letter on October 6 about a letter from Terry Palmer about Mrs Thatcher.

Firstly, I stand by my original letter, having worked for 10 years in the steel industry, humping steel bars about and suffering an accident that left me partly disabled.

I also did engineering, driving, and warehousing jobs before joining the public sector in a strictly manual job with a lot of heavy lifting.

I did move eventually into the office side as I got older and I was glad to get out. Constant meetings and management rants and threats about meeting targets, constant changes to rules and regulations and job losses that left those remaining trying to do the work of several people, just like the private sector.

There are different types of hard work and different levels of stress in the working world.

Secondly, I am NOT the SC who wrote the letter on October 6 that G Ellison refers to.

Indeed, I have just retrieved that edition of The Star from my dustbin and there is NO letter from an SC in it, let alone one from me.

I don’t know what G Ellison is drinking that makes he/she invent letters that are not in the paper, but can I have a bottle for Christmas please?

There is a letter about Terry Palmer and Mrs Thatcher from someone called Steve, but how G Ellison can assume that because someone has the same initial it must be me, and thus warrants a rant at me, beggars belief.

SC

Sheffield

Wrong on both counts

In his reply to my letter of October 6, Terry Palmer has the gall to misrepresent the comments I made.

He insinuates that I am doubting the integrity of those folk in Barnsley who bought their homes under Right to Buy.

This Terry Palmer describes them all as socialists and accuses me of calling them hypocrites. He’s wrong on both counts.

Barnsley people may overwhelmingly vote Labour, but that doesn’t make them socialists, certainly not in the Scargill/Corbyn mould.

I worked in Barnsley for several years and met some great workmates and some good pals and all were, like me, working class.

May I suggest that Terry Palmer reads other people’s letters properly before making any responses and stop making inaccurate assumptions on their political or other “leanings”.

I suspect,however that the only letters that mean anything to you are your own, as well as the opinions you express.

You seem to think that you are the only person who is right on any subject.

As for quoting so-called celebrities’ views, I ask the question does that make them right because of who they are?

Many celebs came out in favour of remain in the referendum, but I suppose rather conveniently you overlooked them.

My own father who brought me up in a mining community and worked his entire life down the pits before dying after retirement with a lung disease taught me many things in life.

However, he would not have sunk to making vile comments about the dead.

Even despots such as Saddam Hussein don’t get those sort of comments.

B Heaton

DN5

Streets Behind more like

I don’t know about Streets Ahead,more like Streets Behind.

I wrote in earlier this year about the Streets Ahead programme, questioning why they took all their heavy plant away to another estate before completing ours.

Why do all the side streets and pavements, which were obviously not the main problem,to move to another estate?

It didn’t make sense to me then and it doesn’t make sense now.

Well, to be fair to them, they did get back to me and explained that the reason was to cause the minimum of traffic delays while doing the main roads such as Bellhouse Road, which they told me would be done in 2016.

The Sheffield Living Wage is a measure which has benefited the most vulnerable low-paid working for the council.

The council could be doing more to set an example in other areas.

Volunteering means most people independently choosing to give their time freely to help others and make the world a better place.

Workfare schemes force unemployed people to carry out unpaid work or face benefit sanctions that can cause hardship and destitution.

Sheffield Council could help by signing up to the Keep volunteering Voluntary (KVV.org.uk) campaign.

Organisations pledge to avoid participating in the Tory government’s campaign and encourage organisations running services on its behalf (for example social enterprises running library services) to do so in the same manner it is encouraging its contractors to pay the Sheffield Living Wage.

Volunteers do so much good for so many good causes in our city.

It is only fair people’s goodwill is not abused.

Martin Vaughan

S6

The worst passengers

How right is M Roberts of Lodge Moor (The Star, October 5).

Perhaps the worst bus passengers to board our buses and trams are the folk out here in Stocksbridge.

When an old or disabled person wishes to alight from the bus/tram, other passengers stand with a gormless expression on their faces, refusing to get off the bus/tram platform for the old/disabled folk, either using a walking stick or having to use a mobile rollator, then grumble if the wheels of the rollator accidentally run over their feet.

Then there are the Stocksbridge idiots who think many an 80-year-old disabled pensioner can keep pace with them.

They grab the front of one’s rollator and give it an almighty yank causing many of the old disabled OAPs to kiss the deck of the bus or tram’s floor.

“Come on,” they say, “I haven’t got all day. I want to get home today.”

Do these clowns think we OAPs/disabled have no homes to go to?

Pete Godfrey

by email

Well done to Brian on OBE

Love him or loathe him, congratulations are in order for Goldthorpe working class lad turned actor Brian Blessed on receiving his OBE award.

Brian was the son of a Hickleton Main Colliery miner and was born in 1936 at the Montagu Hospital, Mexbrough and went to Bolton Secondary Modern School.

The rest, as they say, is history. In any case he’s a Yorkshireman.

Terry Palmer

South Lea Avenue, Hoyland, Barnsley

Come off it Mrs May

In her big speech, Theresa May seemed to be impersonating Julie Andrews.

I expected the Prime Minister to burst into a verse from Climb every mountain.

Is the hard-nosed Mrs May pulling the wool over our eyes by pretending she is for poor people?

The Tories have shown the compassion of a ferret in a rabbit hutch. Come off it, Mrs May.

Max Nottingham

Lincoln

Will Blair join Tory party?

Tony Blair has hinted he wants to return to politics.

If he does, can he show his true colours and join the Tory party?

He was the best Tory PM this country has ever had.

S Ellis

by email

Who is she trying to kid?

Who is Sally Cowdry of Camelot trying to kid?

The Lottery should have been given to Richard Branson years ago and the prize money would have then been split more fairly.

How can it be right that six numbers can win £20 million and five and a bonus about £30,000?

Yes, many good causes have been helped but it’s a safe bet all Camelot big bosses are millionaires.

BT

Chesterfield

Ian Robinson photograph

Many thanks for printing one of my photos on Tuesday 11, it made my day , but the name you printed underneath Peekaboo blue tit had a letter missing meaning an Robinson was printed instead of Ian Robinson . I hope this slight error can be rectified .